16-letter words containing p, o, t, a
- passage to india — a novel (1924) by E. M. Forster.
- passport control — identity check at airport, etc.
- past progressive — a verb form consisting of an auxiliary be in the past tense followed by a present participle and used especially to indicate that an action or event was incomplete or in progress at a point of reference in the past, as was sleeping in I was sleeping when the phone rang.
- pastoral epistle — any one of three New Testament books, I or II Timothy or Titus, that stress pastoral and ecclesiastical concerns.
- patched-together — makeshift; roughly made from disparate elements
- paterson's curse — a purple-flowered noxious plant, Echium plantagineum, a close relative of viper's bugloss, naturalized in Australia and NZ where its harmfulness to livestock has prompted attempts to limit its spread
- pay-as-you-throw — denoting a system for waste collection in which households are charged according to the amount of refuse they leave
- peach tree borer — the larva of any of several clearwing moths, as Sanninoidea exitiosa, that bore into the wood of the peach and other drupaceous trees.
- peano arithmetic — (mathematics) Giuseppe Peano's system for representing natural numbers inductively using only two symbols, "0" (zero) and "S" (successor). This system could be expressed as a recursive data type with the following Haskell definition: data Peano = Zero | Succ Peano The number three, usually written "SSS0", would be Succ (Succ (Succ Zero)). Addition of Peano numbers can be expressed as a simple syntactic transformation: plus Zero n = n plus (Succ m) n = Succ (plus m n) (1995-03-28)
- peasants' revolt — the first great popular rebellion in English history (1381), caused by the imposition of an unpopular poll tax: it lasted less than a month and failed as a social revolution
- pectoralis major — the larger of the two large chest muscles that assist in movements of the shoulder and upper arm
- pectoralis minor — the smaller of the two large chest muscles that assist in movements of the shoulder and upper arm
- pension mortgage — an arrangement whereby a person takes out a mortgage and pays the capital repayment instalments into a pension fund and the interest to the mortgagee. The loan is repaid out of the tax-free lump sum proceeds of the pension plan on the borrower's retirement
- pentatonic scale — a scale having five tones to an octave, as one having intervals that correspond to the five black keys of a piano octave.
- pentothal sodium — thiopental sodium
- people's charter — the principles or movement of a party of political reformers, chiefly workingmen, in England from 1838 to 1848: so called from the document (People's Charter or National Charter) that contained a statement of their principles and demands.
- percentage point — difference: one per cent
- perchloromethane — carbon tetrachloride.
- perforated ulcer — an ulcer that bursts through the stomach wall and leaks food and gastric juices into the abdominal cavity
- performance test — a test requiring little or no use of language, the test materials being designed to elicit manual or behavioral responses rather than verbal ones.
- periodic tenancy — the letting of a dwelling for a repeated short term, as by the week, month, or quarter, with no end date
- permafrost table — the variable surface constituting the upper limit of permafrost. Compare frostline (def 2).
- perpetual motion — the motion of a theoretical mechanism that, without any losses due to friction or other forms of dissipation of energy, would continue to operate indefinitely at the same rate without any external energy being applied to it.
- personal details — details about a person such as their name and address
- personal effects — belongings
- personal liberty — the liberty of an individual to do his or her will freely except for those restraints imposed by law to safeguard the physical, moral, political, and economic welfare of others.
- personal stylist — a person employed by a rich or famous client to offer advice on clothes, hairstyles, and other aspects of personal appearance
- personal trainer — a person who works one-on-one with a client to plan or implement an exercise or fitness regimen.
- personal tuition — private tuition
- personality cult — deliberately cultivated adulation of a person, esp a political leader
- personality test — an instrument, as a questionnaire or series of standardized tasks, used to measure personality characteristics or to discover personality disorders.
- personality type — a cluster of personality traits commonly occurring together
- peter pan collar — a close-fitting flat or rolled collar with rounded ends that meet in front of a high, round neckline.
- petrol rationing — a scheme rationing the amount of petrol that an individual is allowed to purchase
- phagocytic index — the average number of bacteria ingested per phagocyte in an incubated mixture of bacteria, phagocytes, and blood serum: used in determining the opsonic index.
- phantasmagorical — having a fantastic or deceptive appearance, as something in a dream or created by the imagination.
- pharmacogenetics — the branch of pharmacology that examines the relation of genetic factors to variations in response to drugs.
- pharmacokinetics — the branch of pharmacology that studies the fate of pharmacological substances in the body, as their absorption, distribution, metabolism, and elimination.
- phase modulation — radio transmission in which the carrier wave is modulated by changing its phase to transmit the amplitude and pitch of the signal.
- pheochromocytoma — a tumor of the sympathetic nervous system or adrenal medulla, that produces excess norepinephrine and epinephrine and causes hypertension, headaches, nausea, etc.
- philanthropistic — a person who practices philanthropy.
- phosphor fatigue — screen saver
- photoautotrophic — any organism that derives its energy for food synthesis from light and is capable of using carbon dioxide as its principal source of carbon.
- photochronograph — a device formerly used for taking a series of instantaneous photographs of a rapidly moving object.
- photocoagulation — a surgical technique using an intense beam of light from a laser or a xenon-arc bulb to seal blood vessels or coagulate tissue, used primarily in ophthalmology to repair detached retinas or to treat certain kinds of retinopathy.
- photograph album — bound book for photos
- photolithography — the technique or art of making photolithographs.
- photopolarimeter — a polarimeter that uses a photocell.
- photorespiration — the oxidation of carbohydrates in many higher plants in which they get oxygen from light and then release carbon dioxide, somewhat different from photosynthesis.
- photozincography — a type of photoengraving using a sensitized zinc plate.